CHC Commissioner Details Medicaid Woes; Supports Hospital Fee

Governor Sonny Perdue's controversial proposal to impose a fee on hospitals and health care providers across Georgia was questioned today by lawmakers. Community Health Commissioner Dr. Rhonda Meadows, who supports the plan, testified in budget hearings.

Perdue plans to tax hospitals 1.6 percent of their revenues to fill a more than $400 million shortfall facing Georgia's medicaid program. Meadows says that she has made cuts in Medicaid and Peachcare where possible, but without the tax the programs simply do not have enough money.

"If we don't have the tax, we still have that $423 million hole. That is huge, that is huge."

Meadows says that the fee would add roughly $60 dollars annually to the average health insurance plan. Meadows also projects that this year, 130,000 more people will enroll in Medicaid and Peachcare as a result of high unemployment rates.

DayJet is grounded for good

DayJet has grounded it's entire fleet of planes and suspended service, including airports in Georgia. The on-demand air taxi service blames the economy and a failure to secure financing.
DayJet began flying into several Georgia airports, including Macon's Downtown Airport, several months ago. The on-demand airline targeted the business traveler. For a yearly fee passengers were able to book flights to six southern states at a moments notice.

The concept is called air taxi service. Haroon Qureshi is with ImagineAir in Atlanta. They hope to lure some of DayJets former customers. He says unlike DayJet they are expanding their business and believe it's the future of air travel.

"The way airlines are now, you know, I don't know how much longer they can continue. I mean if people are willing to pay the price to go through that then clearly there's demand. But I would say services like ours are going to be the wave of the future."

Qureshi says ImagineAir currently flies into 600 airports in the southeast. DayJet will not be issuing refunds to customers.